Change baseline grid color

[Churchy]

The instruction is "Color—click on the swatch to display a pop-up panel to set the line color." 

What swatch? What swatch controls the base line color? 

[R C-R]

Are you asking about how to set grid colors in the Grid & Snapping Axis Manager or something else?

[Churchy]

Is that where it is done? The "instructions" on the page that includes baseline grids is not clear. Where else can the baseline grid color be changed?

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Churchy said:

The "instructions" on the page that includes baseline grids is not clear

Which page?

[thomaso]

Not clear? – (… another possible option is the Baseline grid in the APub Text Frame Panel)

 

[Churchy]

Perhaps that is the answer. The "Baseline Grid" page doesn't mention it, as far as I can tell. The Affinity folks might get novices to struggle with the program to write their help pages better.

[Churchy]

Thanks, Tomaso. I'll give that a shot and hopefully miss my foot.

[GarryP]

For people reading this who don't know: The thing pointed to in my attached image is a “swatch” – it’s a ‘patch’ of colour which, when clicked, brings up a pop-up which can be used to change the colour. The word “swatch” is a term which is used throughout the Affinity applications, in many areas, so it’s useful to learn what it is.

More related to this specific thread: If I type baseline grid into the Help I get the page as shown above but, unless I’ve missed it, that page doesn’t tell the user how to get to the Baseline Grid dialog in the first place, either by Toolbar icon or menu choice (“View → Baseline Grid...”). If this is true, and I haven’t missed something, then I’d say that’s a problem which needs to be rectified.

[thomaso]

Obviously the help for V2 got the manager removed from the help text about the grid:

While the manager gets mentioned for V1 …
https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/DesignAids/baselineGrids.html?title=Baseline grids

 

… the according text for V2 doesn't mention the manager any more:
https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/DesignAids/baselineGrids.html?title=Baseline grids

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

is a “swatch” – it’s a ‘patch’ of colour

Interesting info. Can you name the difference?

• Is "swatch" an item which can be used to click-assign its colour to a layout object?
• Are the various circular colour spots in the Colours / the Swatches Panel "swatches" or "patches", – or are some of them "swatches" and others "patches"?
• In the forum also "colour well" was used occasionally. How does "well" as an interface item differ from "swatch" and "patch"?

[GarryP]

As for the first part, my guess is there there could have been an intention to move the Baseline Grid functionality to elsewhere – e.g. Document Setup, perhaps – which would have necessitated the removal of references to the Baseline Grid Manager from the Help.

If that were the intention, but it wasn’t implemented, then that might account for the missing information.

As I said, that’s just a guess.

-----

As for the second part, in the software, I think Wells are always circles (or donuts) while Swatches are either rounded rectangles – e.g. Context Toolbar, etc. – or squares – e.g. in the Swatches Panel – or slightly-rounded squares – e.g. in the Character Panel.

While the Wells are always double-clickable (I think), sometimes Swatches are double-clickable, but sometimes they aren’t – e.g. the Swatches to the right of the Palette Chooser in the Swatches Panel.

They seem to have some crossover in functionalities but I couldn’t say why we have both types of controls.

(Don’t get too much caught up with my use of the word ’patch’. It was just my attempt to try and explain something which obviously didn’t work as well as I had hoped.)

[thomaso]

40 minutes ago, GarryP said:

e.g. the Swatches to the right of the Palette Chooser in the Swatches Panel.

These are intentionally locked by the application to represent continuous values, with their definition changing with the document colour space (only K is used for CMYK).

The double-clickability of the swatches can confuse in particular for spot colours of a specific palette (e.g. Pantone): Then via double-click the colour definition can simply get modified regardless of its spot colour name, which may cause unexpected export (and print) results.

Note, aside click and double-click there is also the drag option: This seems to work for all squared swatches to assign colours even to currently not selected objects.

43 minutes ago, GarryP said:

(Don’t get too much caught up with my use of the word ’patch’.

But I'd like to, because in German the difference between "swatch", "patch", "well" doesn't exist and thus their equivalent "Farbfeld" ('colour field') is less precise, while the alternative "Farbmuster" would be rather confusing here since it refers more to any 'sample'.

[GarryP]

In English, a “swatch” is probably most generally known as a sample of coloured paint on some card.

For example, when you are looking for some paint with which to cover a wall you might get some swatches from the paint seller. Each swatch will have one or more paints applied to it. You can then take the swatches home to see which colour matches best before you buy some. Like a Pantone colour book.

It’s also the name for a sample of material (e.g. cloth) used in a similar way.

A “patch” can mean many things, including a small piece of cloth which covers a hole when it’s sewn onto the original cloth. Most people would want the patch to be the same material as the original cloth so the mend isn’t as noticeable.

By “patch”, in what I said in my earlier post, I meant a small area of the screen. It can be used like this in the sentence: “I have a small patch of wall which needs painting.”

There are also:

• “You’re on my patch now.” - This is my area;
• “He’s not a patch on her.” - He’s not as good as her;
• “They should patch things up.” - They should reconcile their differences;
• “It’s a bit patchy.” - It’s complicated and/or messy;

...and probably others that don’t spring to mind.

I think “well” is used in this sort of software to be analogous to an ink well, or similar.
The analogy being that it’s a <something> which you can ‘dip’ your brush/pen into to get a colour/pigment on the brush/pen which can then be applied to the design.

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

Obviously the help for V2 got the manager removed from the help text about the grid:

 

7 hours ago, GarryP said:

As for the first part, my guess is there there could have been an intention to move the Baseline Grid functionality to elsewhere – e.g. Document Setup, perhaps – which would have necessitated the removal of references to the Baseline Grid Manager from the Help.

The Help was arguably incorrect in V1 because the Baseline Grid (including its color) could be controlled in several places: the Baseline Grid Manager (View menu), the Paragraph panel, the Text Frame panel, and (possibly) a Paragraph Text Style. So simply saying it was in the Baseline Grid Manager was incomplete, at best.

Then, in V2, it is no longer the Baseline Grid Manager. All the Managers are in the Window menu, I think. The location that was the Baseline Grid Manager is still in View, and is simply Baseline Grid..., so the reference to Baseline Grid Manager would be wrong for an additional reason.

Still, yes, it should document all the locations where the controls exist.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Then, in V2, it is no longer the Baseline Grid Manager. All the Managers are in the Window menu, I think.

In V2, "manager" has been removed from several things on the View menu but people still sometimes refer to them as managers, I suppose because that's how they are named in V1.

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

In V2, "manager" has been removed from several things on the View menu but people still sometimes refer to them as managers, I suppose because that's how they are named in V1.

However people refer to them, are there any items officially named Manager that aren't in the Window menu, now?

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

However people refer to them, are there any items officially named Manager that aren't in the Window menu, now?

Not that I can see. The distinction between what is now called a manager & what is not seems a bit arbitrary to me.

[thomaso]

43 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The Help was arguably incorrect in V1 because the Baseline Grid (including its color) could be controlled in several places: the Baseline Grid Manager (View menu), the Paragraph panel, the Text Frame panel, and (possibly) a Paragraph Text Style. So simply saying it was in the Baseline Grid Manager was incomplete, at best.

Then, in V2, it is no longer the Baseline Grid Manager. All the Managers are in the Window menu, I think. The location that was the Baseline Grid Manager is still in View, and is simply Baseline Grid..., so the reference to Baseline Grid Manager would be wrong for an additional reason.

13 minutes ago, R C-R said:

what is now called a manager & what is not seems a bit arbitrary to me.

Thanks Walt, as V1 only user I was/am not aware of new places and names within the UI. Whereas this also illustrates the problem of the Help: it still seems to be expected to work like a reference manual.

Nevertheless I don't see a reason for what purpose the V2 Help text got adjusted but in a less clear way than before in V1. Wouldn't it be more help if the old V1 text would still be used instead, regardless with what "official" term the Baseline Grid preference control studio manager panel window  would be named here or there, especially since some of its options exist at various spots of the UI, … for different Baseline Grid personas ? 🦄

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Nevertheless I don't see a reason for what purpose the V2 Help text got adjusted but in a less clear way than before in V1.

Regarding the grid color, how is it any different? 

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Regarding the grid color, how is it any different? 

As this thread demonstrates: concerning where to find the right spot. See the first two posts of the OP.